'It is very good of you, Cherry,' he said. 'That poor boy has been very much on my mind. This is the way to profit by my enforced leisure.'
'That's the way to make me dread him. You were to lie fallow.'
'Not exactly. I have thirteen or fourteen years' reading and thinking to make up. I have done no more than get up a thing cursorily since I left Vale Leston.'
'You are welcome to read and think, provided it is nothing more recent than St. Chrysostom.'
'So here is the letter to Alda,' giving it to her open.
'Short and to the purpose,' she said.
'Alda submits to the inevitable,' he said. 'Don't appear as if she had a choice.'
'Only mention the alleviations. No, you are not to get up yet. There's no place for you to sit in, and the east wind is not greatly mitigated by the sea air. Shall I send Anna to read to you?'
'In half-an-hour, if she is ready then; meantime, those two books, if you please.'
She handed him his Greek Testament and Bishop Andrews, and repaired to the drawing-room, where she found Anna exulting in the decorations brought from home, and the flowers brought in from an itinerant barrow.
'I have been setting down what they must send us from home-your own chair and table, and the Liberty rugs, and the casts of St. Cecilia and little St. Cyrillus for those bare corners, and I am going out for a terra-cotta vase.'
'Oh, my dear, the room is charming; but don't let us get too dependent on pretty things. They demoralize as much or more than ugly ones.'
'Do you mean that they are a luxury? Is it not right to try to have everything beautiful?'
'I don't know, my dear.'
'Don't know!' exclaimed Anna.
'Yes, my dear, I really get confused sometimes as to what is mere lust of the eye, and what is regard to whatever things are lovely. I believe the principle is really in each case to try whether the high object or the gratification of the senses should stand first.'
'Well,' said Anna, laughing, 'I suppose it is a high object not to alienate Gerald, as would certainly be done by the culture of the ugly-'
'Or rather of that which pretends to be the reverse, and is only fashion,' said her aunt, who meantime was moving about, adding nameless grace by her touch to all Anna's arrangements.
'May I send for the things then?' said Anna demurely.
'Oh yes, certainly; and you had better get the study arm-chair for your uncle. There is nothing so comfortable here. But I have news for you. What do you say to having little Adrian here, to go to school with the Merrifield boy?'
'What fun! what fun! How delicious!' cried the sister, springing about like a child.
'I suspected that the person to whom he would give most trouble would feel it most pleasure.'
'You don't know what a funny, delightful child he is! You didn't see him driving all the little girls in a team four- in-hand.'
It would be much to say that Mrs. Grinstead was enchanted by this proof of his charms; but they were interrupted by Marshall, the polite, patronizing butler, bringing in a card. Miss Mohun would be glad to know how Mr. Underwood was, and whether there was anything that she could do for Mrs. Grinstead.
Of course she was asked to come in, and thus they met, the quick, slim, active little spinster, whose whole life had been work, and the far younger widow, whose vocation had been chiefly home-making. Their first silent impressions were-
'I hope she is not going to be pathetic,' and-
'She is enough to take one's breath away. But I think she has tact.'
After a few exchanges of inquiry and answer, Miss Mohun said-
'My niece Gillian is burning to see you, after all your kindness to her.'
'I shall be very glad. This is not quite a land of strangers.'
'I told her I was sure you would not want her to-day.'
'Thank you. My brother is hardly up to afternoon visitors yet, and we have not been able to arrange his refuge.'
'You have transformed this room.'
'Or Anna has.'
On which Miss Mohun begged for Miss Vanderkist to meet her nieces by and by at tea. Gillian would call for her at four o'clock, and show her the way that it was hoped might soon be quite natural to her.
'Gillian's 'Aunt Jane,'' said Anna, when the visitor had tripped out. 'I never quite understood her way of talking of her. I think she worried her.'
'Your pronouns are confused, Annie. Which worried which? Or was it mutual?'
'On the whole,' laughed Anna back, 'I prefer an aunt to be waited on to one who pokes me up.'
'Aunt Log to Aunt Stork? To be poked will be wholesome.'
In due time there was a ring at the front door; Gillian Merrifield was indulged with a kiss and smile from the heroine of her worship, and Anna found herself in the midst of a garland of bright girls. She was a contrast to them, with her fair Underwood complexion, her short plump Vanderkist figure, and the mourning she still wore for the fatherly Uncle Grinstead; while the Merrifield party were all in different shades of the brunette, and wore bright spring raiment.
They had only just come down the steps when they were greeted by a young clergyman, who said he was on his way to inquire for Mr. Underwood, and as he looked as if he expected a reply from Miss Vanderkist, she said her uncle was better, and would be glad to see Mr. Brownlow when he had rested after his journey.
'I hope he will not bother him,' she added; 'I know who he is now. He was at Whittingtonia for a little while, but broke down. There's no remembering all the curates there. My aunt likes his mother. Does he belong to this St. Andrew's Church?'
'No, to the old one. You begin to see the tower.'
'Is that where you go?'
'To the old one in the morning, but we have a dear little old chapel at Clipstone, where Mr. Brownlow comes for the afternoon. It is all a good deal mixed up together.'
Then another voice-
'Do you think Mr. Underwood would preach to us? Mr. Brownlow says he never heard any one like him.'
Anna stood still.
'Nobody is to dare to mention preaching to Uncle Clement for the next six months, or they will deserve never to hear another sermon in their lives.'
'What an awful penalty!'
'For shame, Dolores! Now,' as the short remainder of a steep street was surmounted, 'here, as you may see, is the great hotel, and next beyond is Aunt Jane's, Beechcroft. On beyond, where you see that queer tower, is Cliff House, Mr. White's, who married our Aunt Adeline, only they are in Italy; and then comes Carrara, Captain Henderson's-'
'You are expected to rave about Mrs. Henderson's beauty,' said the cousin, Dolores Mohun, as she opened Miss Mohun's gate, between two copper beeches, while Anna listened to the merry tongues, almost bewildered by the chatter, so unlike the seclusion and silent watching of the last month; but when Mysie Merrifield asked, 'Is it not quite overwhelming?' she said-
'Oh no! it is like being among them all at Vale Leston. My sisters always tell me my tongue wants greasing when I come down.'
Her tongue was to have exercise enough among the bevy of damsels who surrounded her in Miss Mohun's drawing-room-four Merrifields, ranging from twenty-two to twelve years old, and one cousin, Dolores Mohun, with a father in New Zealand.
'Won't you be in the Mouse-trap?' presently asked number three, by name Valetta.
'If I did not know that she would drag it in!' cried Dolores.
'What may it be?' asked Anna.
'An essay society and not an essay society,' was the lucid answer. 'Gillian said you would be sure to belong to it.'
